


Bernadette and Him

by Selwyn111



Category: IAMX, Original Work
Genre: Drugs, F/F, F/M, One man play, This is kinda based off of my experience of IAMX music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 20:19:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9784709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selwyn111/pseuds/Selwyn111
Summary: This is the story of love an incredible woman and Henry. This is their love and life, written in a one man play style format.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off of my growth and time with the music of IAMX (go check them out) Sorry for Canadian spelling but its where I'm from and this is a bit to personal to touch with the little american detail.

I guess you were expecting her as well. I see it on the pamphlets, Bernadette and HIM. Sorry to disappoint, but don't go! I could tell you about her, I guess that would have to do for now, right? I guess that it is why it is a show.

My show. (beat) 

Bernadette is not one to talk about her looks, she would hate it if I described the colour of her hair, or her how tall she was, and her mark on me could never allow for her to be described as if she was a book character. (mockingly) Average height, straight blonde hair, blue eyes, and a nose that turned up ever so slightly. 

No, no I could never do that to her. Okay, so we have somewhere to start, she is a, an, (beat) She is a beautiful, striking women. She is the first face you could make out in a crowded room, and the one you look for after, hoping to catch her eye. No matter how she dresses she can make it work, band t-shirt and baggy sweat pants, to the red dress that you wish she didn't feel bad about wearing, to- the same with her hair, she didn't mind it short, it was enchanting when it was long, the sun could catch it and show every colour that hides inside. It wasn't just one, a small spectrum, and it was incredibly soft. She said it was all the products she used but, it couldn't be soft from conditioner three days later. 

Bernadette was more than just looks and it's what made me l-like her. Simplicity, and infinite complexion, she was predictable and wild and it could switch just like that (snap). She was everything to me, she could be that for anyone. She could be your will to live or she could take it away, but she was smart. She knew the power she had over others, the lovers, the lusters, the lookers. She knew us, and used us but never meant to truly harm anyone. 

Some of you might ask if she was a saint, she was no saint. She wa- is a person of great importance to me. A child of the infinite and a woman I will always adore. The timeless Bernadette, curious, fragile, stubborn, beautiful, demonic, and in need of a little protection. 

Okay so I think you are starting to get an idea of Bernadette, but she was not perfect in any way. No one is, nothing, is. You people love conflict, it's why you come to see these. So let's start the show. 

We met a few times before, we never really talked before this moment, I had seen her in the hallways said hello and was acknowledged in return. We went to grade school together, and middle school, and high school. I was below her by a grade, but we were on that weird year where they cut grade thirteen so we had the same graduation. The college crunch.

I wanted to ask her to go to prom with me, I had known her name, she ran for treasurer for last grade. It was the first time I could ask her to a final end of the year party without it being too weird. She wore a longer black t-shirt and had recently had her hair cut for that occasion. 

"Hello," time slowed down and every word she said was branded into my mind, the point where I wanted to live. I was glad plans had failed in the past, relationships amongst others. 

Her voice could only be compared to heaven singing, or whatever they spoke about at church. 

"Hey." it's so simple of a word. It was good to hear her talk to me, she made it all seem so effortless. 

"I was wondering if you were going to be heading to the dance Bernadette?" 

Her laugh added time to my life so serene and tempting, "Of course I'm going to the dance. It's prom uhh-" 

I spoke far too quickly, too eager to answer, "Henry. Henry Mann." 

"Well then Henry, I hope that you have a good time at the dance." 

She left me standing in the middle of the hallway having no idea what to do, I mean she knew that I was going then. It was a start, it was the start. I waited in anticipation in fear I didn't really go to many parties back then. And now after every party I die, I lived in volatile times through the parties back then, and I went there to see her, only her she was my desire. I don't mean it to sound creepy but that's what I did, I needed to be close to her. Not the others she hanged out with, they could never treat her right they never knew what they were looking at in that one woman. 

The night of prom and I was excited. I was terrified while I was there I drank too much, I got emotional when I thought too much. I shut down the last little bit of rationality in the bathroom trying to ready myself for being the only person to ask for a dance that night. I saw her standing on the gym wall, mostly alone. Of course there were the other people around her, but none so brave or as stupid as I was, remind yourself never pre-drink four coolers before prom. Especially if you are wanting to be with the touch of another. Oh god I couldn't say I walked up to her, (chuckle) I have to say that I sauntered, cocky grin and self assured attitude. 

I was going to ask her to dance I had to ask her then, and as the words left my mouth that's when rationatially returned to me, I worried what if she had said no. What if she would reject me? What if all my attitude would have been for nothing? She didn't she didn't say anything to me. She grabbed me by the shoulders and looked me in the eyes, there was something inside her gaze, something that was judging my soul. At least I thought it was my soul at the time.

It was my worth. 

I thought I was judged thoroughly, I was thanking whoever was listening on that day, I was thankful while I was in her grasp that I turn into a numb idiot in her grasp. I wanted to stay there but then she pulled me into the dance floor and we stayed there in each others embrace, then the music changed. Quick heavy beats, ones that were loud and were making everyone's hearts beat as one, her hair hit me in the face to wake me up from my daze. I let loose I was shouting off key to the music that I had heard a few times, I didn't care how I looked our eyes met a few times and it felt right. 

She sang as off key as I did, there was a phrase that got under my skin, amidst the noises we made deep in our throats I heard her wretch the words out from us. She spoke through me, “I am love, I am god.” And the words that were meant for me, “Now I’m bleeding!” 

That night felt right, I almost threw up from singing and dancing like that, but it felt perfect. Every fiber of myself was alive, every fucking cell was connected and for the first time it was to one another, to someone other. I had stopped after the music and she was gone, it was one second that she was out of my sights, dread and sadness until she wrapped her arms around me from behind and I almost melted. I rested my head on hers and started to get comfortable. 

That was the continual mistake I was always making. 

I got turned around, she kissed me, the rest of the night was a blur. I remember going to some prom after party outside of town walking holding onto her hand and shamefully trying to grab more. I woke up in some tent alone with a note in her writing beside me. 

She had left me her number, that along with one word, again?

Oh yes I wanted to do it again, I waited to call her that moment but not too seem to wanting I managed to wait until night. We set a date to meet again, it was the next day right after we all meet to grab those final things from our lockers. I showed up to our almost date with all of books and last few articles of gym clothes. We grabbed some four sentence coffee latte order and walked around to the wooded trails. We got through all of the main wooded areas, we had managed to follow a creek to a small stillwater pond. 

There we were on the edge of our town, I asked her if she wanted to be more than just people waiting for life to pass us by. I asked her to be part of a bold and brave world together. We became something at that point, became part of one world. 

It only went up from there, I was with her. We were a couple, she showed me so many different places in the town. Places in the town that I had never been before, people I had never met or had even thought I would meet. We always found someone that she had known, someone that could have owed her a favour or someone she didn't want to see again. I respected that and didn't press forwards yet, I didn't want this all to go to shit. Besides there are two reasons that someone doesn't want to go into something, it either means nothing or as I hoped not it could mean everything. 

Things ended in the fall. She had to go out of the town for school, and I got grades that would keep me at the local college but instead i got a job so I could visit her. We spoke in those little promises that we would keep in contact, that this distance would not come between us. The talking led to one thing then another, we found ourselves at an understanding in her bed. It's that moment just before the light goes that matters most of all, we shared something that night. We shared more of ourselves, and in those whispers and words we found ourselves afterwards.

She promised that we would mean the most to each other. I smiled at her words, too tired to understand most of what she said, too worn to try and find something. All I understood was we would mean something. 

I didn't fall in love with her.I didn't, she was not someone you just fall in love with, an infatuation possibly but you could not fall in love with Bernadette. 

I walked into love with her, with my eyes wide open. I chose to take every step of the way. I do believe in destiny. After what she has shown me, but I also believe we are only fated to do the things that we would chose anyways. 

And I chose Bernadette. 

In a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality. I'd find her, and I would chose her. And for a while it seemed like she would choose me. I never had the courage to say the words, it wasn't a love like that. I thought I could never say that to her. Too simple and cliche of a phrase, I just kept waiting at the side knowing that she knew how I felt.. 

The next morning she had to go, I stood there. Beside her and waiting for the bus to arrive to take her away. Her head rested on my shoulder, beautiful. Her face screwed up when someone she didn't want to see walks onto the waiting platform suitcase in hand waiting to go to school. Someone who had tried to be like me, interested in only her, angry at the world that she had chosen someone else after he didn't work out. Mad at her, mad at love, mad at the mind he had lost. 

She asked me not to cause a scene but I couldn't help it. He was just being an ass, and in light of what had happened just before I couldn't let it go. Two things are certain in the world, there's always more to learn about pain, and how's there always a little more innocence left to lose. Or at least that is what I learnt when I got into the fight, he said that I would never mean anything to her. That I was something temporary what I said in return, (searching himself) “Oh shit. I lost all the fucks I gave! Oh no where did they go! You are just some pathetic asshole who couldn't keep someone wonderful!” 

I just managed to avoid getting hit when he shouted back, “At least I won’t waste the rest of my life chasing a fucking whimsical bitch!” I could no longer care about them. They meant nothing to her once they were gone, but I would stay by her side. She told me that we had something special that none of the others had. Super harmonic emotion, it came to me on the platform about what she wanted, and in that moment trying to keep my eyes open with her in my embrace we finally found it. 

We were sappy and kept it touch always wanting to be as close as we could. Her class hours were weird and she was spending time with her classmates so I didn't really got to spend too much alone time with her. There was always someone else, but a few hours a week that we were alone. I wanted to see more of her and surprise her so I decided to go and see her it was just down a few cities so I made the trip. I knew which building was hers, I had see the photos of it before. I waited in the hallway for a second, watching the lights filter through the hallway off campus in the small buildings close by. I knocked on the door and heard no response, checking the door handle it was unlocked. 

I went into her room it was something to behold. It had something to do with the paint on the walls, the tables, the floor, the electrical outlets they knew this place was for artists; the cans with the labels torn off sitting in the sink, full of paint coloured water; the pencil doodles on the table that I started to change constantly; the way everything was arranged slightly different every time I saw it afterwards; the half finished projects everywhere inside, laying on drying racks, hanging on the wall, propped up on an easel. Everything about it suggests continuous use even when it's empty. It's just continuity and returning and belonging.

That’s what I felt, at least. She smiled when she saw me, a soft smile that spoke of times she was alone at night. The times she could have had another love but waited for me. I saw circles under her eyes, then I saw smelt some of the chemicals in the room. They didn't replace me, but it made me being far away easier she said. 

It was a different smell each time, sometimes she was smiling other times she looked worried. Once I heard someone else, a slight cough in the apartment. I let it go, I only asked her if she still would mean the most to me she said yes. 

Through her I learned of fire, and god or lack thereof. I learned that fire is a god with three faces. Fire creates, sustains, and consumes. Like her, it hides her third face. Like her, you had to be burned to know it. 

I tried to ignore the telltale signs that she was with someone else, the marks on her. They weren't mine, it could have been from parties but that didn't make it any easier, she was with someone else. I didn't want to let my feelings get in the way of our relationship. But our relationship was built on feelings on emotions and connection. I had to confront her, I found him we had a moment of absolute silence before I broke down.

There we were no one having clothes on in the apartment. Arguing and crying, he tried to mediate some peace but I didn't want to hear anything from him. He was alone with her without clothes and it was all that mattered. I didn't want to hurt him I wanted to ruin the fucker if he laid a single hand on her.

She explained why he was there after pulling me into another room, he was a dealer and needed a place to stay for a few days until the search died down. The clothes being off were practice for her classes practicing anatomy, it was the only condition that she had. It was still awkward, I asked why not do it on the campus and she said he meant nothing, and she didn't want campus security to chase him naked through the hallways. 

He left that night, I guess my glares didn't make him feel at her home, I mean it was our place. He left something as a sort of apology I wasn't versed in that world by any chance but she showed me the way. We had some type of night, she told me to write what I said to her and looking back now, I was a sap. What we felt was pure and too connected, I never knew where she started and I ended. Or personalities blended together, and I felt what she felt. I knew what she knew. 

I had to tell her how I felt at that moment. It was something that was of the moment, Bernadette you are my liberty, I celebrate the day that you changed my history of life and death. Will always lead you into love and regret but you have answers and I have the key for the door to Bernadette. Winding down your emotions family and friends becoming ghosts to dream of and pass on time will erase every face every name. We are alone. No-one to blame. I could never blame anything on you. I need you to know that everything you say to me will mean the world, because you are my world. Because … 

She giggled and hit me on the head with a pillow. She asked me again? I had a laugh that was a deep rumble in my chest, I could feel the little bedposts shaking, the rumble subsided to a soft chuckle. Always.

Always I would be with my Bernadette. 

Our choices matter to someone, somewhere. It was the morning after and we walked to her campus. I was going to drop her off before I had to get back to work for an evening shift, I had time to catch my bus back home. Right in front of her classroom she asks me something i never thought possible. 

Se asked if we wanted to explore the world together. To see it as no one else ever could. I didn't know how to respond. She took it as a yes. It didn't really matter, my courses didn't mean much to me, they were only a way to pass the time until I saw her again. It was settled, we were going to see the world.

All of it. 

There we were preparing to take on the world. We needed passports to buy most things as our secondary ID so we just left that night really. I suggested that we stop off at my parents house to grab a few extra supplies but it wasn’t in her plan. We made it to the coast, we made it to New York. The city life was something that we both saw for the first time there were neon lights that shone all through the day. We walked like we owned the world, despite carrying everything we now owned on our backs. 

We stopped in some overturned boutique house, Lanvin was the name. Walked in with decent clothes, but walked out with fine wares. We heard a fuss being made when we were already half a block away, Bernadette grabbed my hand and we ran through the streets. We stopped in central park, the colour of the budding flowers in the spring were beautiful. I wished we could have seen more of the city and spent some real time before moving on but there was a cruise ship that we had to catch. The Queen Mary cruise ship from some noble end for the rich who wanted to travel, we had to blend in. 

We almost did blend in, it was when we tried to push our luck, in the middle of the sea it was found that we weren't guests of the ship but stowaways. I promised to work hard for the other guests, Bernadette smiled and pulled the security officer in close, her voice curled around the officer. Her smile brought him to his knees, a single kiss made him forget. He apologized to us and said we could continue, I had found him keeping an eye on us far more often than other officers. We eventually made it back to him, I had found her working her power over him, teasing him with the family he had back home. Taunting him with what could have been. Taunting him with what we were doing for the whole trip. An entire week of taunting the poor man. 

Will you be able to live with yourself knowing what I'm going to make you do? I was unsure of what she meant but I followed her when she coyly asked. We broke into others rooms taking what we needed. The first time I tried to stop her from stealing, she said they wouldn't even notice that a few small items were gone. Its why they were buried in the bottom of the suitcases. No complaints on the last day of the trip, she was always right in the end. 

We walk off the docks covered in other guests belongings, they never even noticed that they were gone. Going to a pawn shop and selling them for the money we would need. Small mom and pop bed and breakfasts to start seeing the sights of london, She opens her backpack to reveal canvas pieces and paints. I watched her paint parts of England, going to three separate angles of London tower to get the right view. 

We go and buy the tickets for our trip over the Chunnel well under it. We arrive in Paris, the city of love. True love, what ours was never to be broken. We go through the streets with her painting of England at the base of the tower she places the canvas but then stops, circling the tower she didn't find what she wanted. Rolling up her canvas she started off. 

And here I was with two ice cream cones expecting to have the afternoon watching the painter at work but then following her through the city instead. We cross a bridge still within view of the eiffel tower then down a waterway slightly finding room amongst the docs. She placed her thumb as measurement against the eiffel tower then looked like she was trying to remember where this spot was. 

Then we went through the town, looking at the shop fronts and finding a small bed and breakfast owned by two nice women. We stay for most of the afternoon in each other's embrace, when we walk down the stairs we get a polite giggle from the women who intertwine their hands smiling. Love that lasts. 

We grabs food, quite literally. A large vendor we see them arguing with a customer who was refusing to pay for something that they didn't order, we bought it for half price. It was an unusual choice for a vegetarian burger with triple bacon and onions. But it was something memorable. We walked back around the city, I suggested that we should see the sunset and she agreed but was heading back to the tower. 

Turning off the bridge down by the docks to that spot we were in that morning she set out her canvas. The purple and pink haze behind the tower’s silhouette was breathtaking. Seeing her paint it all humming a discordant tune trying to match the songs around her all at once was her charm. My laugh brought her back turning to face me with a mischievous grin, and three paintbrushes in her mouth, we laugh and she tries to catch the smallest one before it fell. 

Stripping off my pants, shoes and shirt I jumped into the river to get that paint brush. Despite being the late end of the spring it was still a cold dive. I get out of the water on someone’s boathouse smiling and holding onto that paint brush like my life depended on it using it as a victory point. Shouting out before I started to shiver, I had gone down a few blocks and was looking like it was a walk of shame back to where I left her. I made it a quarter of the way before I heard my name being shouted looking up I saw Bernadette running towards me trying to make sure I was safe.

So I get to do the walk of shame with somebody else? She pushes me then kisses me almost taking me down to the cobblestones. Teasing with a way she could make me warm we head back to where we left the painting. Everything left where it was with a little girl and her dad watching over the painting and our belongings. I cover myself not sure if I would get public indecency near a kid. I did have my boxers on but the kid was like six. We grab my clothes and then she finishes off her painting adding a green and gold to the clouds. Still shivering she grabs the spare canvas and wraps me in it as a shawl, in our room she points out that I look like a Jackson Pollock painting mixed with watercolours. 

We spend a few seasons in Paris the people who own the bed and breakfast laugh and say that it was how they ended up with the place. Escaping family because of who they loved working to stay where they were free to love was their home even if it wasn't this building. I had a job with the vendor and Bernadette was making art of people in her style of art. All the tourists wanting to remember that they came here wanting to immortalize how they stayed and she helped them. Prices varied and she received some comments but t didn't think that they got to her. 

Until it did. I found her in bed for the whole day not moving, she has had words of wisdom for me so I hope I had the words for her. People who dislike you will always find reasons to dislike you. In your lifetime you will meet many will take issue with what you do. It is up to you to reflect upon your behaviour and determine if their complaints are valid. You should always strive to improve yourself but there are some who will never be satisfied with your efforts. Don't break yourself with those who would ignore when you bend, some things you must simply let go. We got so used to winning that just once we have to be use to taking it on the chin. 

She smiled weakly and I crawled back in bed beside her and stayed there not doing anything but whispering out my praise and love for her, but it seemed to work in the end. The next day she was back to herself smiling and dancing with the owners of the bed and breakfast making them smile. Then their smiles turned sad and a nod, they hold onto each other and then I see the backpacks with a canvas tube waiting. 

If you ever can do come back and visit. It is good to see something familiar.

We left right then, we made a few thousand from staying in Paris for sixteen months, most people lose money but we weren't people. We were gods, so that's where we went next. To where everyone claims they see God, and feel that holy connection. To see the holy see. 

It was a long walk but we could spend much more time together over twenty four hundred kilometers of walking including all the stops and getting side tracked what should have been around a month and a half turned into a three month journey. I guess this is exactly why people take a year off to backpack around Europe despite being smaller than Canada there is still so much to see. 

Even then we missed some of the great things to see, didn’t see the Berlin wall, the Parthenon, Big Ben was a glance at, the beauty of spain, stonehenge and so many other things. We saw a lot of Europe. (beat) We saw a fraction of Europe. We saw the people of Europe, we saw the different streets and back alleys, we had stopped at almost every town she never stopped painting and she always found what she looked for. Whether it be a nice place to paint the golden hour, or something to enhance our nights. 

We started mixing almost a year past our first harmonic emotion. She wanted the connection and honestly I wanted the high. Call me a coward but I kept more to shroomes and then only had a bit of coke at the end right at the end to time the peaks. Coming off a coke was always a pain but what we felt mas more than human, it was instinct and innocence. 

It was something to add to the edge of our world, on top of it on the edge of a knife. Waving at the abyss. I helped her with some cons and often worked wherever we ate for some free food for a day while we traveled. 

We eventually stumbled across the Adriatic sea after Austria, She wanted to get a painting of the shore but not by any boat. We made this small airtight container folding small pieces of canvas and paintbrushes, waiting for a lowtide we saw these rock barriers to keep the shore from being hit with bad waves and then we swam out to it. I had the strength to hold onto everything else while we swam to the rocky outcropping. 

I feel a tug at my ankle almost kicking out thinking that it was seaweed, Bernadette had grabbed onto my leg. I allow myself to be pulled under the water, the salt stings my eyes for a split second blinking away the pain I follow her. She drags me down to the sand beneath the waves, some crepuscular rays peeking out from behind clouds blending in the water she kisses me. I hold her down there with me for as long as we can stay each one daring the other to go up first. 

We breach the wave at the same time, It takes a lot longer to get to the rock outcropping once there she opens up and starts her painting and I top up and sun up and almost rest up. The sun stays out casting a shadow over Bernadette in a flower covered one piece bathing suit, the shadow does nothing to her focus of her painting. 

She moves aside giggling and on her painting, it was a picture of me on rocks. Except it was comedic, there was a wave crashing on the rocks and I was surprised and soaked. I let out a laugh and then her painting became somewhat true, I might have cracked a rib from falling into the water below. 

Might have been from the laughing, might have gotten sick that night from drinking in seawater while trying to breathe. Might have seen the other paintings ready for another splash trip if she tried that. Exhausted we make it back to the chain brand room we are staying for the night. I pass out on the bed and wake up with the embarrassing photo on the ceiling and a plate of food off to the side. 

Alone in the hotel room I started to wonder where she went, I got into a deep spiral almost wanting to trash the room in attempts to find her. Her stuff was here but I couldn't take a chance and leave what if she came back while I was out. I stand and need to find something to take away the pain, liquor would only help so much I started to think again. Cold in pain in a hotel room, removing my shirt I saw that I was far more hurt than I thought. But she patched up the gash along my bottom ribs. 

I waited almost unable to think of anything else. I started to think of who I was, and it blended back into her, she was who I was. The thought would have scared a rational man but I was not rational anymore, I took it in stride because I thought I knew that she felt the same. I sat and laid around the room waiting for her to come back it was almost three days until she did. 

Hurt and what I thought betrayed I acted like a child holding a tantrum trying to give her the cold shoulder and playing to my injury. She acted like nothing was different, she smelt like wines with a touch of seabreeze her hair was lighter in patches because of the sea. Crusted with salt she said, she said I was crusted with salt. 

I broke down, and started to beg to know where she went. Why she didn't take me with her. I feared that I would die alone with no one who would know that I was there, I looked like a mess. Tears blood, deranged, a sad song, a broken mess on the edge of a hotel bed.

I guess I am part of you. You were almost dead yesterday, we could die tomorrow, but alive, today we are gloriously alive. Lets live like this everyday it makes every emotion so pure. I know that I mean the most to you and you are part of my as well. I left to get someone to check on you and to get more for you. You are the one doing so much for me I wanted to return the favor. 

We go to an old abandoned house just outside of Naples we travel at a half speed. My sentences are littered with apologies because I am slowing her down. Continuing to drag all of our gear a small suitcase with her works that she wanted to keep. The house was a special art piece covered in all sorts of flowers, fruits and through the basement she showed me old barrels of wine. She painted the house inside and out in a kaleidoscopic view with all colours bending and starkly contrasting what they should be in reality. Perfect circles and imperfect lines, swirls of colours that shouldn't be there but fit to complete the picture. 

I go downstairs still nursing my ribs and find my happiness, I crack open a barrel and enjoy it with some food we got at the edge of the city. I see the label makes the barrel to be fifty years old. Putting my water bottle in and out to give it some air was a funny sight to her. Taking off my shirt she looked sad at what had happened to me still, I pull her close and make her forget. We forgot everything for a while and there we found what we were looking for, happiness. There she was, waiting for a smile to come to me, for the signs, the power drunk fucks that filled me with despair, finally turn to a smile. Return to something happy. 

We spend three days in that house quite drunk while she painted I was on I made my music and we would laugh at the horrible poetry that described up perfectly.

The freedom was like an addiction we soared on a glorious high, living to us was a mission devoid of objective in mind. We’d move at the drop of a dime with no thinking or questioning why, never developed attachment to things all would get left behind. This was the method that patterned our ways, perpetual motion without any reins. No repercussions, no piper to pay, no obligation to come into play. Nothing to weigh, no one to sway, no inhibition or stress to allay, so die on the morrow but live for this day. Lone as the wolf strays we remained one in kind a habit of force made as he wade far and wide, now onwards and upwards, no grind. If you don’t seek you can’t find, devil-may-care, well no devil compared, we were onto one hell of a ride, we were gone.

And we were gone to the city. We ran through the streets, I might have more walked but it was appreciated that we still went together I saw new bruises and marks on her so she was glad to walk as well. I saw the toothy grins that leered at her and in two days we were back on track to meet God. Even though she still was standing beside me.

Some of the cars look familiar but I guess that is a symptom of living on the road. Trying to find patterns, trying to find anything, trying to make sure it is found. We make it out of Italy, and into their city state, you know watching movies they never show the forest at the Vatican and the looks of the swiss guards in their hats were a good sight to see. 

It is undeniably beautiful, do you not agree? Looking back at the Vatican inside St. Peters’ square, with all its ornate decorations, marble pillars, and carved saints.

It was the mask of a God, Bernadette replied sourly. 

A mask or the face?”

Bernadette stared hard at me, and back at the saints of the Vatican. The mask she said, or perhaps the illusion, concocted by those who seek to elevate themselves above all others and have not the skill to do so.

I didn't have any idea of what she was talking about but she pressed forwards.

Someone inferior with the people or with their thoughts can still so elevate themselves, Bernadette replied curtly, if they can impart the root belief that some God or other speaks through them. It is the greatest deception in all the world, and embraced by presidents and people, while those like me like us are cast out lying thieves on the streets and other are banished and killed for not believing in their God.

So don't bring up religion at the next family gathering. I was only being sarcastic but it was something I had never seen from her before. Something else was the Latin. 

Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo. She smiled coyly and coldness gone, if I cannot reach heaven, I will raise hell.

We stayed all night there, hiding in the trees with four dark pieces of canvas hiding us from the guards and security officers. We didn't sleep and walked around the square before sunrise being found by the obelisk then moving away from the city state before we removed. It was an interesting time to see it, we didn't want to overstay our welcome. 

Staying out in the summers heat before we found a room she asked me, she asked me if I believed in God or some higher power. I told her that I believed in her, and with her stern looks I explained it further.

Faith is something that while isn't real is to so many people. It’s just skin and bones, nothing inside any building or specific place. Its kinds like sleeping alone but with fingers tying themselves in knots at the bottom of our hearts. It is something that is what the holy men you speak of call a spine of the world, and honestly I'm tired of it. They say God sparkles and shines the light of the world, maybe it is true or maybe it's that people have twisted the idea of God. I want to say something is out there but all i can say is that I have to trust what you always say. 

I am god, I am love. 

And now I’m bleeding. 

She hits me with a drying cloth and paints my nose purple, she always knew why she liked me. It was an easy trip outside of the city, and we journeyed outside of europe to Africa, we wanted to see it all. 

I never thought we ran into that many problems until we started making it into the end of the migration season. I thought I kept seeing the same people, all blank eyed and errant mids, in wants of wanton flesh of my Bernadette. It was weird going from one summer to the next one, seeing the people as a wake. Change in hemispheres was cool but we really see any difference until we visited South Africa going to the bottom of the sane world and we saw some adorable fluffy ass penguins like this big (relatively small). And no one to rove and follow her.

We went onto a ship after seeing one of the cities to take us away from the area, back on the Queen Mary ship. Bliss for a week once we were dropped off at Eilat or Aqaba depending on which side of the city you were on. 

We moved on and on again when fighting took us out of safety, There were close calls, some were closer than others. We were visiting Iraq and it was the first time I had been close to death. There was an explosion, and everything was burning. I dreamt of gunfire for the long search for her. It was hours but it felt like days. 

We got separated, and I found her. Her face was red from burns and covered in soot and debris. Art we had kept charred and then I saw the bodies around her, she made it out because someone had wanted to keep her safe. If I had done my job I would have been a casualty in this. 

It was just like seeing one of my sleeping portraits except it was her she didn't wake up at my touch, I was cradling her in my arms. I begged her to wake up, that this joke wasn't funny anymore. That she was getting a bit cold, and that meant she would leave me. I heard more shouting and I knew I had to move, sandwiching our artwork between us I pick her up and I go, I run as far as I can. 

She wakes up just as my legs start to fail me, and then we push forwards, over eight hundred kilometers we keep moving seeing and hiding from large trucks and others. Not knowing their intentions, we keep running until we reach Nepal. 

Holy shit that place was beautiful, but with the terror behind us it was too still. Like a pond untouched by the world, like a body left in the snow. I told her that's what we would be if we decided to try Mount Everest, so instead we spent a month sitting around monasteries and then painting over the char that was surrounding some of the canvas. Some she worked around and it added a depth to the paintings that could never be replicated. 

It was in the market that we heard some cheesy Italian accent, someone was following us. Looking worse for wear then we did, he walked over to us over to her and started to try and play nice guy. He was expecting her to do something for her. He was expecting her to say that she missed him. 

He had helped bandage me up. That was what she said then she rubbed at places I had seen marks, his cost was something putrid. But she did that for me, no one should have asked for that price, but she wanted me to be calm about it. I couldn't have taken him on in a fight I was too small. Of course I had lost some weight backpacking around the world, but never tell me what I couldn't do anymore. 

It was after the third day, we didn't have enough money for supplies so we were working for food again. Her charm and painting, and I as a dishboy. Three days of him hovering around her, we came home and there were bruises. Fresh, I knew who did that. I took what I had to so I knew I would come out on top. 

I tried to be nice to him I really did, but when it came down to it after what he did. You say, “Fuck it, violence seems to be the only answer people understand.” He had hurt her once before so I would beat him within an inch of his life I don't know if it was wrong it didn't feel wrong at the time. I just wanted her to be safe, I just needed her to be safe.

I know that I got hurt in the midst of the fight. Just as I had gotten hure before but that didn't matter, I won I came out on top. But seeing her with that small bruise, sticks and stones may break my bones.

But words can never quiet describe the pain. 

Never the pain of seeing of seeing her hurt. Pain is all relative. A mother could never see her son being hurt, I couldn't see her being hurt. I would suffer so she would never have to, I would always bleed for her. I will learn the taste of dirt and pain, I will teach it to others until my knuckles bleed, I hope it makes it easier to breath.

Bad men doing bad things that's. fuck that's common, ordinary, unremarkable. But it's when we good men do evil deeds that's when the devil smiles. I did almost kill him but he had hurt her. There could have been a chance that we never could have been together, and I couldn't let that happen. I was still a good man right? Or was I just caught up in her lies that I had to start making my own. 

I woke up in the hospital covered in bandages, and with a few IV tubes sticking out of me, nurses surrounding me saying I was lucky to be alive in their thick accents. They told me that if the young woman had not brought me in when she did I would not be waking at all, they described Bernadette and I asked where the waiting room was. Stumbling I saw it was empty except for a father looking worried at another room. 

A lonely heart, a wandering eye, an empty stomach, a shoulder to cry on. This is what makes us, us. I never knew that I would have been left in the world. She had gone into the night I didn't bother to read the note she left until the next day. The note she left scrawled in different coloured pens was her saying she needed that connection. The harmonic emotion, we achieved it but only with outside help. There had to be a way to find it without putting someone in danger, I was never in any real danger. Even if I had died was this any better. 

I searched the streets, asking around for someone I couldn't describe. My memories of her blurring together, I must have seemed crazy. It took two months and I found her in almost worse shape than I was when she left me in that hospital not sure if I was going to die. 

I went through the rest of the world trying to find her. It took a few days until they released me from the hospital, by then I was part of the crowd. I, I I couldn't keep up with her, she was just a dream, a dandelion prophet, she went where the wind took her, that's where she was heading. I tracked her seeing all the people left in her wake, they were left drained and still wanting. They were half lifes, we were full lifes, we could be full lives I just had to get back to her.

Just had to find her.

Four gruelling months of tracking her through Asia, tracking her through the world. I found her she was alone in the middle of Tokyo. I thought she was alone but she had found someone else, I got closer and closer and it seemed that she was getting closer and closer as well. She and her, another woman it could have been any number of reasons that I kept going. All the others around me fell off, they didn't have the drive, they didn't feel the same about her as I did. 

I caught up to them and she was in a small shop looking at some cute plushies while the other woman went inside to buy one. I approach her and so weakly like a child wanting comfort. 

Please can I come back?

She shook her head as the other woman came out. Do you want to know what she said to me? "All things end, all things burn to ash. But you my friend burn bright." 

What I discovered about Bernadette was this, her heart was an arsonist, building bridges so you have something to burn, after all it is far easier to burn the house down then to grow comfortable living in it.There are no happy endings, endings of the saddest part. So just give me a happy middle. And a very happy start. 

(Beat) I didn't want it to end. I kept following her around. It felt like the old days, I saw that I was looking worse though. The woman she was with was looking amazing, but still paled in comparison to my Bernadette. I took jobs where I could, jobs that would accept my absences as I tried to recover my life. By chance I got a room in the same complex as them, I was glad she couldn't see me most of the time, I am a little glad that she couldn't see my face or any of my dishevelment when I was suffering from more intense withdrawals. She could tell though, by the sound of my labored breathing and the slamming and rustling of books and canvas thrown astray. Once I heard a soft sigh and a tap against the wall. 

It took a few long months to get back to myself, I saw that what we wanted to achieve was making me do this. I saw her still but we had gotten through, with the connection without the help. I knew she wanted me to get better and I did. There I had managed to work and get something back to normal, if that could be considered anything like normal. Bernadette was my friend again, we talked and Makio was a nice girl, there smiles were different from what we had. 

Four in the morning I hear a door slamming, I had gotten comfortable. I stayed in bed thinking that someone was working a morning shift and had just been late or door jammed. The next morning she was gone, they both were. Did she give the offer to see the world as well. I would have to ask her myself, I picked up the phone and before I could ask she heard strength in my voice and shattered it.

“For a while, I really thought you could do it Henry, I really thought you could… But there is still someone else”

Her voice trailed off, she was sad that it came to this over a phone. I was sad it had come to this, a whole world to be with and she had found another love. I wanted to cry right there, I wanted to fall in love again, but all my tears were used up on her other love. She had moved on and I knew that I never could. 

I hung up the phone, pushed it off of the table and kicked it across the room. And for a long while I layed down and cried. Now I think that to Bernadette we are books, she reads us from cover to cover then tosses us aside, She devours us one after another, and then she reads us more so. The more she reads us the more insatiable she became, there is no limit to her. I had to find her once again, even if one last time. 

Is that all we were to her? Just liminal spaces, she had a destination in mind and no matter what any of us did we had little context to her. There was context before us, and after us but we were something to never be dwelled upon. She felt altered by us, she didn't want to dwell on us. We weren't our own entities, and when she thought of us as one we seemed odd. 

Some of us had made it closer to what she had wanted and I was one of them but still none of us achieved what she wanted. We had that connection for one fleeting second. It felt like forever but it didn't work out, we couldn't find it without the drugs, we couldn't find it again. She dragged me across the world, she used my youth, my money, my body for her own pursuits. 

And sadly enough I would let her do it again, I will sit in the beautiful town, as it tore its children to pieces. I grew up blind like everyone's child in the warmth of milk and deceit, smothered by love and the chemicals. She chewed me up, spat me back out to the streets, to her the rest of my life was a spirit to forget and a great connection never to be. 

She had two parts that were her there was an emptiness, the dominated every other feeling, the sadness of the depressive days, for desperation, but want for happiness. Then there was this beautiful other side, it was angry, loud, manic, energetic. Yet, it was not happiness but being high on our own ego and still fighting what she thought and both fit with each other and overlap each other in some aspects.

This beautiful town, I remember it blacker than night. Now the whores and the sick-mouths, the bad tastes and the neon lights, abscess twisted with fondness. Too much expectations, followed by hope and then hate in this mess. The rest of my life will be a glorious show for you right? You sing for me my friend. Brave and confident. And there is comfort between your breaths and when your touching turns to regrets, it became my mercy chant. I miss your warmth in my bed, your voice from down the stairs. You left me on the descent, on every saving word and my destruction of all my convention was only corrupted thought.

I was shown this truth over and over again, everyone I had come in contact with was just memory. I wanted to connect but I had changed and I couldn’t allow myself to be dragged back down, not in the slightest bit. I had finally been able to get better for her. I ran this race alone, with a goal insight I kept going. 

I finally caught up to her, back home. Where we grew up, where we had shared so many of our dreams in a single summer. I find her walking in front of the school pointing to it, then I don't see Makio but a different man with her head on his shoulder. She spots me and 

I was never a good friend was I? I am sorry Bernadette. It was for a long moment I forgot what we were. 

She keeps her distance. I wanted to go and hug her but then I saw him, standing off a few feet behind her. I didn't warn him, I didn't accept him. I needed her still. Stumbling forwards to try and get close to her he moves closer. Sinking to my knees I have to tell her; something I should have told her but something I needed to say to win her back. When you got that feeling that you were standing on top of the world, seeing nearby people living on the streets, peacefully, but not harmed and with no money. When you got that feeling, that life is not fair, not sharp, not peaceful, but extremely dangerous. When you got that feeling, you are standing on top of a building, seeing the streets cracking and lava streaming out of the cracks, and all the screaming people that are running away... When you got that feeling, that whatever you do, it's without sense. You do something, without knowing what you're doing. Humanity has always been evolving constantly, without problems, without troubles, but sometimes you struggled. When you were young, you learned how to walk, talk, play, and communicate. When you are a little older, you start to discover the world around you. What if the apocalypse was that close? Watching in front of them, seeing all those people die, in Syria, Iraq, Iran. When you got that feeling , you've found your infinite love of your life. When you got that feeling, that you can stop the time, and do whatever you like to do, with you friends, families, or well-knowns. When you got that feeling, that everything you did, was for nothing. When you got that feeling, that your playing cards with your friends. When you got that feeling, you could starts your own country, and follow your unbelievable dreams. When you change a mans soul, when you change a mans life. Thank you, so much for what you've done. It's simple to say but... "Hey, I love you." That's all I said, “Hey, I love you.”

And what she said to me, "I had waited so long. It couldn't be anything to me so it wouldn't be." 

At some point I had to have realized that I had done too much for someone, that the only next possible step to do was to stop. Leave them alone. Walk away. It’s not like I was giving up, and it’s not like I shouldn’t have tried. It’s just that I had to draw the line of determination from desperation. That line I crossed so many times. What is truly yours will eventually be yours, and what is not, no matter how hard you try, will never be.What else can I say. We all die three times, once is physical, second is when loved ones forget us. The last one is when anything we create is lost or forgotten. If I could do anything right for Bernadette then let it be to immortalize her in these words. 

Goodnight.

**Author's Note:**

> I have seen Chris's work change so much from sneaker pimps to his newest addition of Everything is Burning, I always want to keep going with what happened. My life I have been Bernadette to others, and I have had my Bernadette but this is Henery's. Please tell me if you have met someone so beautiful that they would be the death of you.


End file.
